When God said “No”.

Riddle: What is full when it’s empty?

Do you ever use the “J” word in public?

Did you inow . . .

Some encouraging words

“Pick up your mat”

Banned Words For 2016

We Can’t Pick And Choose Who To Love

Dance Lessons

By Dr. John Ed Mathison
Executive Director
John Ed Mathison Leadership Ministries

Many interesting life lessons were learned from this past basketball season.  Many coaches and teams can testify that you can get overconfident and be upset.  Many learned that there is no such thing a sure win in the “big dance.”  Coach Ron Hunter from Georgia State learned that you can get injured on the bench if you celebrate too much!

On February 18, 2015, I wrote about Coach Dean Smith and things he taught as a coach.  On October 29, 2014, I wrote about a new hero of mine, Lauren Hill.  She scored the first basket of the college basketball season.  She is on hospice, but still alive and doing God’s will.  Both of these blogs are archived on my website.

Here are two more powerful lessons I learned from this past year:

When Austin Hatch was 11-years-old he survived a plane crash that killed his mother and two siblings.  Would you believe that eight years later another plane crashed and killed his father and stepmother and left Hatch in a coma?

Austin wanted to play college basketball.  As a 20-year-old he finally realized his dream when he walked on at the University of Michigan.  He scored his first points when he sank a couple of free throws.  He said, “My past won’t define my future.  What happened to me is kind of unique, but that’s what happened.  That’s not who I am.”

Our past should not define our future.  If our past is tragic and bad and disappointing, God’s gives us a new chance and a new hope for the future.  If our past was extremely successful, we can’t rest on the laurels of the past but have to move on to what God is calling us to do today.  Our past should never define our future.  The Apostle Paul said, “Forgetting the things that lie behind, and reaching for the things that are before, I press on toward the mark of the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”

Coach Kevin Willard is the coach at Seton Hall.  He did not have a really good season as he was 16-14 and 6-12 in the Big East when he played Georgetown.  He desperately needed a win.  There was some talk that his job was in jeopardy.

Georgetown had a player by the name of Tyler Adams.  Tyler came to Georgetown on a scholarship, but developed a heart ailment and couldn’t play.  Georgetown’s final game was with Seton Hall and the NCAA granted a waiver for Tyler Adams to play.

At the opening tip Seton Hall fell back and allowed Adams to dunk his first goal in college basketball.  He then was taken out of the game and left with an emotional exit.  Georgetown did not know that Seton Hall would purposely let Adams score the first goal.

It was a class act on the part of Coach Willard!  Seton Hall went on to lose the game by only 4 points.  He received some criticism for allowing Georgetown to get 2 easy points.  He said that it was more important for Tyler Adams to have a memory of his only game in college basketball than it was for him to get a win.  That is class!  The Bible says that we should esteem others better than ourselves.

In life winners are not those who score the most points, but those who score the most with their lives.  If you want to advance through the brackets of life, learn and practice these lessons taught by Austin Hatch, Kevin Willard, Dean Smith, and Lauren Hill.

The “big dance” takes on a new meaning.  David relates how in Psalm 30:11God “turned our morning into dancing.”  The wisdom of Solomon is expressed in Ecclesiastes 3:4 when he tells us that it is a time to dance.  Austin, Kevin, Dean, and Lauren are pretty good dance teachers!

John Ed’s blog posts appear each week in For His Glory.
Contact: JAM Executive Suite 4,4131 Carmichael Road, Montgomery, AL 36106 Phone: 334-270-2149 Email:info@johnedmathison.org

Your Drawbridge

By Dr. John Ed Mathison
Executive Director
John Ed Mathison Leadership Ministries

We are constantly warned that we have to be careful what we eat. If we consume spoiled or poisonous food, it will have very adverse effects on us. When going into a foreign country you have to be careful about drinking the water. What we put into our bodies will determine how our bodies function.

The same is true of our minds. What goes in determines our actions. You can’t put in bad things and expect good things to come out. Our minds are like a computer – garbage in, garbage out.

We are the only ones who determine what goes into our minds. This makes guarding our minds very important. Recently Jim Denison referred to the following quote by Henri Nouwen: “Think of a medieval castle surrounded by a moat. The drawbridge is the only access to the interior of the castle.

The lord of the castle must have the power to decide when to draw the bridge and when to let it down. Without such power, he can become the victim of enemies, strangers, and wanderers. He will never feel at peace in his own castle.”

Apply this image of the drawbridge to your mind. You are the keeper of the drawbridge. You need to keep the drawbridge up when bitterness comes calling. All of us have adversities in life. We get mistreated. If you invite bitterness into your mind, you will become a bitter person who other people don’t enjoy – and you won’t enjoy yourself.

Negativity inevitably comes calling. Keep the drawbridge up. A negative outlook will always produce negative results. Whenever people say that something is impossible, practice selective deafness. Don’t listen to them.

Pride is constantly requesting entrance. The middle letter of pride is “I.” It creates an attitude where we think life focuses around ourselves. Sin also has “I” as the middle letter. Pride is an expression of sin. It is when we think we can replace God. When sin and pride call, keep the drawbridge up.

Fear will come calling. Fear will paralyze you. Fear will conjure up demons that don’t exist. Fear will make you feel totally inadequate to face a situation. The Bible speaks 365 times against fear – that is once for every day of the year that will help you keep the drawbridge up on fear.

There are some good visitors that will come calling. Put the drawbridge down for them. One is faith. Faith is the antithesis to fear. Faith means that we are going to follow what God desires for us. One of the best definitions of faith is “forsaking all, I take Him.” He is in charge of the future.

Hope will come calling. Put down the drawbridge. I love the lines in South Pacific where the young lady sings, “I’m stuck like a dope with a thing called hope, and I can’t get it out of my mind.” The most basic hope that we have is not in our individual achievement or our personal abilities, but in the fact that God created us and has a plan and purpose for our lives.

Love will come calling. Welcome love. Jesus taught that it is the way that we are to live – to love God and to love our fellowman. It is the universal language that everyone understands.

You are in charge of the drawbridge to your mind. Nobody else can operate it for you. What you allow to cross the drawbridge will greatly affect your quality of life and your effectiveness as a human being.

Guard carefully your drawbridge.

John Ed’s posts appear each Thursday in For His Glory.

Contact: JAM Executive Suite 4,4131 Carmichael Road, Montgomery, AL 36106 Phone: 334-270-2149 Email:info@johnedmathison.org

Walking In “Newness” Of Life

Do we know what newness of life truly means?

The Second Best Blog Post I’ve Ever Read

I’m genuinely excited to publish guest author Helen Murray’s blog post, The Healer on For His Glory.

The Problem Of Being Different In Church; Welcoming Differences, Avoiding Divisions

By Rob Morley
Pastor, Real Life Church

Exploring the possibility of real unity under one roof despite differences of opinion

An Open Letter To The Church

What Do People Remember?

By Dr. John Ed Mathison
Executive Director
John Ed Mathison Leadership Ministries

How do we want to be remembered? As people think about their relationship with us in the past, what do they remember? What is our legacy? If someone had to place some words on our tombstone, what would those words be?

My New Year’s Resolution: Make No New Year’s Resolutions

New year’s resolutions are useless to me. I’ve never kept one past January 20th. So I stopped making them years ago.

I know. I know. You’re saying that by saying I’m not making any New Year’s resolutions, I’m making a resolution. I’ll let you language mavens wrestle with that one.

However, I do have some things I’m hoping for in 2013.  My men’s Bible study leader asked us these two question

See, I Am Doing A New Thing

 Two things in life I can’t do without: 1) my glasses, and 2) my TV remote.  I must know  where both are at all times.  One day I couldn’t find the  remote. When I lose something,  the first thing I do is blame Marie. When  I retrieved my

Can Things Get Any Worse? — Of Course

I think I’m beginning to reckon with reality. I’m becoming somewhat cynical about the condition of the world. Most all the news is bad.  Even the Christian radio shows I listen to air stories about all the evil they are battling through their organizations.

Nothing surprises me any more.

And things are gonna get worse before they get better. Thank goodness there’s still one place we can look to and find real hope.